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Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

How long could a human survive on Mars wearing only jeans and a t-shirt?

Clue: Not very long.

MARS IS AN unpleasant place.

It’s cold, full of deserts, and has very little oxygen or gravity.

The average annual temperature on Mars around -53°C. At its hottest, Mars could hit 26°C near the equator in the middle of the day. In the Martian winter, however, temperatures could fall to -128°C.

That’s why the first requirement for visiting the red planet would be a spacesuit.

But we were curious: How long could someone survive a summer day on Mars without all this fancy equipment, say, wearing only jeans and T-shirt and while holding his or her breath — which the average human can do for a little more than a minute.

The answers is, unsurprisingly, not very long.

“The most serious immediate impact would be from the low atmospheric pressure that is nearly a vacuum compared to Earth,” Chris Webster from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Curiosity rover roaming Mars, said in an email.

Within minutes the skin and organs would rupture, outgas, and produce a quick, painful death.

If not killed by the low-pressure atmosphere — there are many other environmental factors that make Mars inhospitable to humans without protection.

“Any humans on Mars would have to contend with the lack of oxygen — only about 0.1 per cent compared to Earth’s 20 per cent — the very cold surface temperatures, the ubiquitous and irritating dust, the intense UV radiation, surface chemicals and oxidants,” Webster said.

And all this before they started looking for food and water!

This post is part of a continuing series that answers all of your “why” questions related to science. Have your own question? Email dspector@businessinsider.com with the subject line “Q&A”; tweet your question to @BI_Science; or post to our Facebook page.

Read: A third of the ‘Mars One’ hopefuls have dropped out … but all three Irish candidates still in the running

Read: So, what are the chances we’ll see an Irishman (or anybody) head to Mars?

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    Mute Graham--
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    May 4th 2014, 5:04 PM

    Jesus even parts of mars get better weather then Ireland

    497
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    Mute Jimbo
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    May 4th 2014, 5:13 PM

    How long could you last wearing jeans and a T-shirt during an Irish summer?

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    Mute Barry Doyle
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    May 4th 2014, 5:59 PM

    Clue: not very long.

    249
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    Mute John O'Neill
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    May 4th 2014, 5:03 PM

    Would tight underpants not help a bit?

    128
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    Mute Eddie Harkin
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    May 4th 2014, 5:43 PM

    The question should be how long Mars would survive if we sent Chuck Norris

    119
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    Mute Just4 TheJournal
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    May 5th 2014, 12:07 AM

    Question should be how long would you survive if you tried to send Chuck Norris anywhere

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    May 4th 2014, 5:04 PM

    Have you not watched Total Recall thejournal?

    114
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    Mute Summer Bay Devil
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    May 4th 2014, 5:46 PM

    True. Don’t want to get on the wrong side of Cohagen.

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    Mute Paul Flynn
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    May 4th 2014, 5:50 PM

    Quaid Quaiiiiiiiiiiid Quaaaaaaaaid

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    Mute Summer Bay Devil
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    May 4th 2014, 6:08 PM

    See you at the party Richter

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    Mute Emmet9
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    May 4th 2014, 6:09 PM

    Give the people the air Cohagen

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    Mute fergal ohagan
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    May 4th 2014, 6:55 PM

    His actual name was Colin ohagan, he’s my fifth cousin, twice removed!

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    Mute Summer Bay Devil
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    May 4th 2014, 9:44 PM

    Is he an air baron too?

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    Mute fergal ohagan
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    May 4th 2014, 9:59 PM

    Yeah and he also sells jars of Martian air to fools in America. Makes a killing on it!!!

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    Mute john kinsella
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    May 5th 2014, 12:21 AM

    Don’t tell that corrupt bast££d D.O.B

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    Mute Summer Bay Devil
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    May 5th 2014, 10:02 AM

    Man I got five kids to feed

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    Mute Gary
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    May 4th 2014, 5:18 PM

    Mars doesn’t have a moving core so it doesn’t have a magnetic field which would mean cosmic radiation would kill you quite quickly. Hypoxia would be another factor because of the lack of oxygenated blood to your brain. Because of the low atmospheric pressure the boiling point of water would drop to about 35 degrees Celsius which would cause your tongue to boil in your mouth and choke you. Also all of the fluids in your body would be forced out because of the pressure difference.

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    Mute davey p
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    May 4th 2014, 5:44 PM

    But on the plus side, the women have 3 boobies

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    Mute Paul Flynn
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    May 4th 2014, 5:51 PM

    Mmm mm mmmm you make me wish I had three hands

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    Mute PC
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    May 4th 2014, 5:51 PM

    That’s it Gary I’m defiantly booking it for my mates stag do, sounds like the effects are pretty similar

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    Mute Summer Bay Devil
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    May 4th 2014, 6:08 PM

    You’re doing just fine with two

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    May 4th 2014, 7:30 PM

    So no chance of a decent cup of tea then, Gary?

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    Mute David Spiteri
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    May 4th 2014, 5:26 PM

    Arnold swarzennegger lasted less than 30 seconds in his dream in the film total recall, you’d be doing well to last longer than him.

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    Mute Jimbo
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    May 4th 2014, 8:31 PM

    That wasn’t a dream.

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    Mute David Spiteri
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    May 4th 2014, 8:35 PM

    I’m pretty sure it was, as far as I can remember he wakes up in bed with Sharon stone consoling him, lucky guy, pity he had to terminate her, “Consider that a divorce”, quality show.

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    Mute Jimbo
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    May 4th 2014, 10:08 PM

    No.

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    Mute TOP CAT
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    May 4th 2014, 5:20 PM

    Business insider,
    You are talking through Uranus….

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    Mute Stephen
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    May 4th 2014, 5:31 PM

    Could we atleast give it a try, step forward Lucinda Creighton

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    Mute Massimo Osti
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    May 4th 2014, 5:38 PM

    Send Patrick Lyons up first and let’s put this hypothesis to the test..

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    Mute Pickart Solny
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    May 4th 2014, 6:37 PM

    Nice one.

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    Mute FlopFlipU
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    May 4th 2014, 5:16 PM

    Yer wan looks spaced out already

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    Mute Sue Kelly
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    May 4th 2014, 5:13 PM

    Sounds like fun… When are we going?

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    Mute George Salter
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    May 4th 2014, 5:25 PM

    Very little gravity? Who proofreads these articles?

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    Mute Gary
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    May 4th 2014, 5:33 PM

    George, it’s about 3.7m/s/s. It’s a lot compared to the moon but not a lot compared to earth.

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    Mute George Salter
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    May 4th 2014, 5:56 PM

    In the context of rocky bodies in the solar system, 3.7 m/s2 is fairly high. “Very little” is misleading.
    BTW, I’m beginning to think that some subgroup is redthumbing everything I post…

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    Mute Gary
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    May 4th 2014, 6:17 PM

    George, I see the angle you are coming at now.

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    Mute Brian Ó Dálaigh
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    May 4th 2014, 7:25 PM

    In fairness, George, the article was not in the context of rocky bodies in the solar system. It was in the context of human survival and the relationship between conditions on Mars and conditions on Earth. In that context, Mars does indeed have very little gravity.

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    Mute George Salter
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    May 4th 2014, 7:51 PM

    The gravity on Mars is high enough for humans to live without known longterm effects. People would probably get taller, longterm, and it would take a while to adapt to Earth gravity again. Having said that, astronauts who have been longterm in effectively zero gravity on the ISS, readapt fairly quickly.
    As Mars gravity is close on 40% of Earth’s, I stand by saying that “very little” is inaccurate and misleading.

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    Mute Brendan Harlowe
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    May 4th 2014, 7:58 PM

    But these astronauts were born on earth and spent most of their lives on earth. It would be different if moving from a low gravity to high gravity environment I imagine ?

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    Mute Brian Ó Dálaigh
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    May 4th 2014, 8:14 PM

    I still don’t see a problem with using the phrase “very little”. If someone were only consuming 40% of their daily caloric intake you would say they were consuming “very little”. If someone were only consuming 40% of their daily water intake you would say they were consuming “very little” water. If someone only had 40% of the required amount of oxygen to breath, you would say they had “very little” oxygen. Likewise, gravity on Mars that is only 40% that of what’s on Earth is “very little” gravity.

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    Mute George Salter
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    May 4th 2014, 8:27 PM

    I’d put 40% as little, and below 20% as very little, myself. Still, there aren’t any rules that I’m aware of about these distinctions. I suppose it’s fairly contextual.

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    Mute Brian Ó Dálaigh
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    May 4th 2014, 8:34 PM

    I think we can agree that there are no rules and that it is contextual. I guess what the author is doing is trying to contextualise for an audience somewhat unfamiliar with astronomy, rather than trying to impart a set of statistics and facts that would baffle the uninformed reader or leave them confused. But, again, that’s only my interpretation. (Personally, I would classify 0-5% as negligible, 5-20% as extremely little, 20-40% as very little, and 40-60% as little. But it depends on what is being measured and, again, the context)

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    Mute Sean
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    May 4th 2014, 9:35 PM

    Say if the earth’s gravity equated to a shot of whisky (a nice 18 year old say), in a crystal whisky tumbler, and you took away 60% of it, it’d look like there was feck all in the glass…. so i’m cool with the ‘very little’ description.

    …on the other hand, if the you filled the glass to the top, (choose either poison, whisky or gavity)….we’d all be welded to floor!!

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    Mute an Gealach Gorm
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    May 4th 2014, 9:56 PM

    It’s a god awful sad affair.. To the girl with the mousey hair

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    Mute Oliver
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    May 4th 2014, 6:39 PM

    Is say people constantly talking about politicians and bankers on stories like this are doing it on purpose. Ye must be,surely?

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    Mute James Murphy
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    May 4th 2014, 5:24 PM

    I’m still going anyway

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    Mute Marty O' Neill
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    May 4th 2014, 6:14 PM

    Can we ask all politicians, bankers & lawyers to please go there???????

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    Mute Barry Mc Donnell
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    May 4th 2014, 8:41 PM

    Not if I get all the cold callers who got my number on the spacecraft first, irritating ba##ards

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    Mute Sheik Yahbouti
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    May 4th 2014, 8:59 PM

    I don’t know, and I don’t care

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    Mute Tony
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    May 4th 2014, 10:03 PM

    At least you’re not a spacer Sheik.

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    Mute Philip Cooper
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    May 4th 2014, 7:21 PM

    Ah, that old chestnut?

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    Mute Colette Kearns
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    May 4th 2014, 7:46 PM

    About as long as you could on earth, there problem solved next question. ?……

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    Mute Anita Elawure
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    May 6th 2014, 12:03 AM

    Very interesting.

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